You might find more incentive to replay in the amount of collectibles that are there too. For a game without a multiplayer mode, it gives some extra incentive to replay the 15 hours or more of story. Your choice manifests later in the game too, with different characters being available for certain moments in the story’s progression. One of the choices at the end of the prologue mission gives you a lock picking ability and armour upgrades while the other allows you to hotwire certain locks and gain health upgrades. Towards the end of the mission you’re forced to make a choice which then branches the timelines and opens up one of two slightly different skills in addition to the incremental unlocking of various perks as you play, based on whether you’re favouring stealthy, tactical, assault or explosive approaches. The prologue has one other profound impact on the rest of the game too. But the short-sightedness and rote patrols do detract slightly from the tension of the stealthy approach that is otherwise encouraged. It could reasonably be argued that Wolfenstein games have never been too keen on embracing tactical approaches or strategic methods of play so it’s not entirely unexpected that the enemies tend to follow rigid patrol routes, attack in straight lines and leave cover at a time that’s most convenient to your waiting shotgun. It’s a nicely executed idea that gives the gameplay another facet, even though the enemy AI is a little hard of hearing and not at all observant. If you’re seen by them before you manage to carry out the assassination, they sound an alarm that calls in reinforcements and makes your immediate future that much more Nazi-ridden.

If you can kill these commanders without being spotted, you gain their knowledge of the collectibles in the level. Stealth is encouraged by the presence of commanders in many areas. It still has its confined spaces but they generally link much larger areas of the often maze-like maps that can usually be approached in a number of ways. Whereas the prologue mission – probably deliberately – feels very old-fashioned in its narrow hallways and point-to-point progression, the bulk of the game – once you’re into the 1960s – has evolved too.

At key moments, between bouts of mindless Nazi-slaughtering mayhem, the player is pushed into very restricted situations that encourage stealth or set up a jump-scare in a kind of survival-horror-lite way that is quite a change from the usual all-action gameplay. It’s a bleak world and one with a very tangible sense of tension that the game does a great job of picking out from time to time. As you make your escape and Blazkowicz comes to terms with the length of his recovery, the player is treated to a gradual reveal of a very different 1960.

Wolfenstein the new order cutscenes